January 3, 2013

Wow! Here's this failed, low-rated cable TV project of Al's. What is Al Jazeera buying? It's going to close down Current TV and only seems to want access to the American TVs that receive Current TV, if the people watching those TVs wanted to watch Current TV, which they obviously don't. There are many, many more spots on the cable TV dial, so why buy Gore's channel? Al Jazeera paid $500 million total (Gore's share is 20%). That seems like a crazy amount of money just to get onto cable TV. The idea is — as the NYT puts it — "to convince Americans that it is a legitimate news organization, not a parrot of Middle Eastern propaganda or something more sinister."

How hard is it to take over an existing slot in cable TV?

News channels financed by Britain, China and Russia are especially hungry for American cable deals. To date, the BBC has had the most success; its BBC World News channel is now available in about 25 million homes thanks to a deal struck last month with Time Warner Cable.

But the takeover of Current brings Al Jazeera to the front of the line.

But did BBC or those other channels ever try to purchase an existing channel's access? Would $500 million be the going rate? Did Al Jazeera negotiate only with Gore's channel or did they try to get a better deal from some other channel with pathetically low ratings?

In recent weeks, Mr. Gore personally lobbied the distributors that carry Current on the importance of Al Jazeera, according to people briefed on the talks who were not authorized to speak publicly.

So... Al Jazeera was buying the former Vice President's advocacy.

Distributors can sometimes wiggle out of their carriage deals when channels change hands.

How long is that carriage deal? $500 million worth of long? And it's not even guaranteed? It could turn into nothing?!

Most [distributors] consented to the sale, but Time Warner Cable did not...

Time Warner Cable had previously warned that it might drop Current because of its low ratings. It took advantage of a change-in-ownership clause and said in a terse statement Wednesday night, “We are removing the service as quickly as possible.”

So Time Warner — which serves 12 million of those 40 million homes — is already out. Did Al Jazeera get hoodwinked by the Oscar-and-Nobel-Prize-winning former Veep? He did what he could for them, "personally lobb[ying] the distributors that carry Current on the importance of Al Jazeera." How much more can you buy in this world? You got Al!

Hey, I just thought up a slogan Al Jazeera can use as it promotes itself to the American people: You Can Call Us Al.

This isn't hibernation: This is his activity. Current TV was more like hibernation.

What you need to see here is that Gore used his clout to get onto 40 million lines of access into American households even though he never had a set of programs that people would watch. That was his first stage of activity: getting contracts with the distributors who were buying a product that was essentially nothing.

Then comes the "hibernation" as the nothingness sits there on the distributors' service, with viewership about equal to the daily traffic on this blog.

Then Al reactivates, selling these contracts, this access, to Al Jazeera. He also sells his clout to be used against the distributors not to drop Al Jazeera, even though the contracts give the distributors the right to end the contract if it's sold. The distributors could have added Al Jazeera directly if they'd wanted it. They didn't want it.

The hibernation was the period in which it seemed as though there really was a viable enterprise in Current TV.

He flipped it. See it. He was not a failure. He was a huge, huge success in the thing that he was really doing. If you think what just happened is a failure for Gore, then you are being tricked in exactly the way that Gore specializes in. He is a trickster. See it! Don't let the misdirection fool you.

I'd believe Al Jazeera before I'd listen to anything that Gore has to say. Al Jazeera might learn a lesson that a lot of us already have, and that is don't believe anything that Gore tells you. Al Jazeera might learn a very expensive lesson here.

So this was a bid by the State of Qatar to buy a megaphone for their state-owned media outlet to propagandize North Americans.

They're kind of at their peak of influence right now, as they've been funding much of the Arab Spring, including a lot of the arms shipments and most of the propaganda. But they're smaller proportionally than the United Provinces were back during their worlds-striding peak of dominance in the 17th century. How do they survive and prosper in their chosen course without being crushed by the feckless, aimless behemoths that surround them on all sides? They rely heavily on American hegemony to defend their borders and interests, with only a notational military of their own.

Strategically speaking, they're a remora on the American dominion, with all actual influence such as they wield powered by cash and whatever "soft power" they've developed with that cash advantage and the reputation they've built by operating a highly sophisticated overgrown media of relative freedom and flexibility remarkable for their region.

al Jazeera isn't free - it's owned by the state and the Emir - but it gives the impression of not being under control, at least in comparison with the highly controlled output of their neighboring tyrannies.

Time-Warner has said their contract with Current is no longer in effect and they won't carry Al Jazeera. I have contacted Comcast and asked them to follow Time-Warner's example.

On a TiVo brand machine, one can set up channels to be in your guide. I have CurrentTV currently set a channel I do not receive (even though it is available) so it will never show on the guide even if I put the guide on all channels versus just my favorites. I never watched it with AlGore, I won't with a new Al....

Just when things seem dull I remember that Al Gore exists... Mr. carbon footprint, Mr. Manbearpig, Mr. Inventor of the Internet, Mr. harassing masseuses for handjobs... and he never fails to do and say really silly things. And while it is scary to think how close he was to becoming president I'm not convinced he would be worse than what we have now.

Al Gore may well be the most personally successful "pump and dump" stock scam artist in the history of the planet.

And he did it all because so many people want to save the planet rather than save their own families first and then their neighborhoods.

("I can't stand my family and don't want to event try to do the hard work of building relationships with them, let along my neighbor. But I can feel good about myself and feel positive about who I am because I am green.")

Al Gore sold you salvation in a made-up heaven.

Now he's a gazillionare prophet.

(He split with his wife, but she didn't understand his greatness and gifts to the world and those other women.)

That's obviously a lost cause now as Al has accepted that devil's contract.

The lighter side to this story is that Al Gore is a pretty good businessman for having been a failure of a US Senator, Vice-President and failed Presidential candidate. Kudos to Al for buying low and selling high.

As a Time Warner customer it is heartening to know that they have dropped Current TV.

This would have been even more heartening had I known they ever carried it and had I chosen not to watch it. As it stands, I never knew I was missing the chance to avoid watching Current TV purposefully.

There's a TV network called "Dave" in England, so a network called "Al" might be the smart folksy down-home way into America's living rooms or whatever room TV's are in these days. More Little Mosque On The Prairie and prattling about Social Justice and the Downtrodden, and less judgmental imams, compulsory hajibs and fire-and-brimstone Koran preaching. If they feel like taking the indirect approach. Gotta be positioned to compete with the Hispanics and Chinese in 21st Century America...

_____________________________A man walks down the street, He says, Why am I soft in the middle now? Why am I soft in the middle? The rest of my life is so hard! I need a photo-opportunity, I want a shot at redemption! Don't want to end up a cartoon, In a cartoon graveyard .....

re: "But did BBC or those other channels ever try to purchase an existing channel's access? Would $500 million be the going rate?"

The answer, for certain, is no. As someone who's spent some time in broadcasting business-acquisitions, I can tell you it's the same as any other business: the value is either 10-12 times net revenue, or 2-3 times the gross. Al-Jazeera is paying about 4.5 times Current's gross revenue, or about double what it's really worth.

" the value is either 10-12 times net revenue, or 2-3 times the gross"

That seems really high for business in general. In my experience, the going rate is 3-5 times net annual profit for a business not in distress. I wouldn't pay more than 5 times unless I knew something positive that the seller didn't.

I'm not sure what to think of Al Jazeera. We got a Roku box for Christmas, and while experimenting with it, I found and watched about 30 minutes of international news coverage. I thought it was pretty good.

Of course, the subjects they covered when I watched had nothing to do with the Middle East, jihad, or other topics regarding which I would be particularly wary of Al Jazeera.

If one human type could be excised from the body of society to the benefit of all surely politicians would rank first on the list by a margin that puts every other criminal enterprise in the shade. But instead we feed them. Like cancer.

Ann wrote:That was [Al Gore's] first stage of activity: getting contracts with the distributors who were buying a product that was essentially nothing.

Not unlike carbon credits, what? This Big Cash for a Big Nothing is definitely the Gore MO.

I used to dismiss Al Gore as the archetypal hipster doofus, i.e. a hothead for the cause de jour, one who throws away logic and objectivity as mere impediments to purity of goals and means, but I was wrong. It is increasingly evident that Gore is the most successful grifter in history.

Here in Fairfax County, VA, we actually get Al Jazeera for free as a broadcast channel. I have heard people claim that their news shows are less biased than ABC, CBS, and NBC. Don't know whether that's true or not, because the only TV I watch since "Numb3rs" went off the air are "Doctor Who" reruns on PBS plus Swedish and Italian detective shows broadcast at night on the same channel that carries Al Jazeera.

Now you can call me Al,And you can call me Gorey,And you can call me Junior,And you can call me Jazzy,And you can call me Zeera,And you can call me Bertie,And you can call me AJ,And you can call me AG,But ya doesn't hafta diss my Johnson.

We get a daily dose of Al-J through a cable public broadcast service called MHz, or Worldview, associated with one of our local PBS outlets. Not bad, although the bias is evident in everything. On the other hand, we also get RT through it. Compared to the Russians, Al-J is even handed.

A Swedish detective? Sweden is one of those countries with a total ban on civilian firearm ownership, and thus crime-free -- one of those countries we should emulate according to David Gregory. So what the heck does a Swedish detective investigate?

THE CHIEF: Get Kurt in here, pronto!

WALLANDER: Ja? You called, chief?

THE CHIEF: Get over to the Skeppsholmen and find out who peed in the lutfisk! It's terrorism, I say!

As a subscriber to DirecTV we already have al Jazeera (channel 375) and Current (channel 358) and I don't watch either one. Although there have been some weird prison shows on Current and wild-eyed leftist documentaries that we tuned into just for laughs.

One of my former neighbors is an Air Force pilot with multiple tours in the sandbox. He told me something very interesting about Al Jazeera. In his opinion, they were the most balanced network when it came to covering the Middle East. According to him, Al Jazeera made the best effort to cover both sides of news stories.

@Quaestor, I thought lutefisk was strictly a Norweigan delicacy. I guess you want Varg Veum instead of Wallander?

Many of the Swedish mystery shows use Russian or other eastern European gangsters, or illegal Muslim immigrants, as the gunmen. Those Swedes would never be mass killers. Now those Norweigans, on the other hand ...

The actress who plays Huss, Irene Kovacs, has the ability to appear to be just an ordinary woman, maybe a little prettier than most but nothing special, and then she does something, I'm still not sure what, and she's utterly gorgeous. Among American actresses only Ashley Judd can do that as effortlessly.

And Branaugh should never have tried to do Wallander. The Swedish version has much more verisimilitude.

Every once in a while a tweet appears that's so silly, it must be a joke. Like this one from Glenn Beck: "Before Al-Jazeera bought Current TV, TheBlaze looked into buying it but we were rejected by progressive owners." Guess what? He's totally serious. The Wall Street Journal caught the detail in its coverage: "Glenn Beck's The Blaze approached Current about buying the channel last year, but was told that 'the legacy of who the network goes to is important to us and we are sensitive to networks not aligned with our point of view,' according to a person familiar with the negotiations."

Jay said...There are many, many more spots on the cable TV dial, so why buy Gore's channel?

Because Al Jazeera assumes, correctly, that the people who's political beliefs are open to Al Gore's network, will also be open to Al Jazeera.

In other words, they're Jew hating, not that bright idiots who easily believe propaganda.

==================Actually, Current TV was co-founded, financed, and run by wealthy, uber-well-connected Jews in the media and legal community like Joel Hyatt and Mark Rosenthal.Gore served as Frontman for the investment and ongoing operations. And to further enhance investor access to the present residents lining the corrupt hallways of power in America's Imperial City.

As for the audience, typical Gore acolytes - including a boatload of progressive jews and liberals.

Both sides have not-bright idiots that are easily propagandized...or how else would you explain the large audience of radio listeners and TV followers of Sean Hannity, Michael Savage??(Rush is different. Rush is actually pretty incisive and funny.)

#7 Qataris. The financiers of Al Jazeera, of the Arab Spring, Egypt, Libya, Syria, etc etc. There's only a quarter of a million of these people, and all their real decisions are probably made by sixaristocrats, but the effect they have on the world is incredible. If the War on Terror had a winner, it's the Qataris. Nobody ever dares to say anything mean about them. Even Israel and the USA are afraid of them, because the USA and Israel both instinctively kowtow to rich guys with TV stations.

Jay said...There are many, many more spots on the cable TV dial, so why buy Gore's channel?

Because Al Jazeera assumes, correctly, that the people who's political beliefs are open to Al Gore's network, will also be open to Al Jazeera.

In other words, they're Jew hating, not that bright idiots who easily believe propaganda.

==================Actually, Current TV was co-founded, financed, and run by wealthy, uber-well-connected Jews in the media and legal community like Joel Hyatt and Mark Rosenthal.Gore served as Frontman for the investment and ongoing operations. And to further enhance investor access to the present residents lining the corrupt hallways of power in America's Imperial City.

As for the audience, typical Gore acolytes - including a boatload of progressive jews and liberals.

Both sides have not-bright idiots that are easily propagandized...or how else would you explain the large audience of radio listeners and TV followers of Sean Hannity, Michael Savage??(Rush is different. Rush is actually pretty incisive and funny.)

Bravo. More of this. Not bad at all for a C student who bores the living piss out you whenever he speaks.

I'm forced to have a wee just reading about him.

What I've seen of Al Jazeera has been responsible, unique, and interesting and I welcome alternatives to our own legacy media and competitive cable news shows which seem to me to be FOX VS a slew of anti-FOX.

The one that I keep trying to watch, keep wanting to be interesting, and keep being driven off of is Democracy Now.

A scary Halloween hag, a real live lady with gray straw for hair and gravely fire-damaged voice, sweetly named Amy Goodman, with a face made for radio and a voice perfect for silent film who nevertheless concentrates on television, like Gore, parlaying public money to personal fortune, is what does it. Whereas Gore drones on Goodman scathes on. She could say to you, "Here Honey, would you like some milk and cookies?" and it would scathe and chill simultaneously.

Sorry to get distracted there. I'm actually feeling better about Gore. You know, now we can more fully set aside pretenses. Plus I like success stories like this, gold out of thin air, our own fat Rumpelstiltskin. It's win win win.

To make things worse, the deal actually leaves Al Gore on the board of directors. He still has a hand in running it! I guess Eliot Spitzer and Jennifer Granholm aren't going anywhere after all.

Other interesint tidbits - AJ America (the late Current) is going to be a separate channel from AJ English, so apparently us DirecTV subbers will get both (tho I've never watched either; I don't get into the 3s much except for storm updates on TWC).

From what I understand, AJ was the only network to deliver comprehensive coverage of the Arab Spring, and has decent info on Syria.

Haven't seen Al Jezeera TV, but I have heard Al Jez radio. To me it's indistinguishable from the Beeb. Some effeminate English twit intoning every item like it's the most dramatic thing to ever happen in human history. It uses the same story template that NPR does, which it probably stole from the BBC.

algore was not about to have his Current position snuffed out in a Blaze.

Current is supposedly more philosophically attuned to Al Jazerra programming than to Glenn Beck. That is really scary when you think that the Arab broadcasters routinely showed beheadings and rubbed elbows with terrorists.

Judging by some of the comments, Americans could use a bit of exposure to Al Jazeera. Maybe not wholly objective (what news channel is?), it is nevertheless known to those outside the US as an excellent source of information, providing many stories from around the world which are never covered by the other news outlets. It also provides a much-needed different perspective on stories we in the West often think we know - I highly recommend Americans not letting their learnt prejudices (the NYT quote about "Middle Eastern propaganda" is telling) prevent them from giving the channel a fair shot.